William Louis Poteat (1856 - 1938)

Born 20 Oct 1856 in Caswell, North Carolina

Ancestors

Died 13 Mar 1938 at age 81 in Wake Forest, Wake, North Carolina, United States

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Biography

William Poteat is Notable.

The son of a conservative Baptist slaveholder (James) and his wife (Julia A. McNeill), "Doctor Billy" became one of the most outspoken southern liberals during his lifetime."^[1] He was taught by a governess before entering the village academy at Yanceyville, then Wake Forest College (now Wake Forest University) where he became a professor (c. 1880-1905) and its seventh president (1905-1927) as well as a leader in the Baptist church and the Progressive Movement in the South. He was a strong supporter of prohibition, teaching evolution, and eugenics (Hall, 2015).

Poteat believed that the theory of evolution did not touch the fundamentals of Christian faith and could not, therefore, be antagonistic to it. He first came under attack in 1920 in a series of articles in the Western Recorder by T.T. Martin, a Tennessee evangelist, and for the first half of the 1920s, Poteat was the target of conservative Baptists inside and outside North Carolina who condemned his views on faith and science and demanded his ouster from Wake Forest. He survived battles in the church press and the Baptist State Convention through forceful argument, exemplary personal conduct, and the passionate support of his former students, described by one of them as "grim alumni, with red eyes and no scruples about flying at a fundamentalist throat."^[2]

Timeline

• 1872: Entered Wake Forest at age 16.
• 1877: Graduated from Wake Forrest.
• 1878: Started teaching at Wake Forest.
• 1881: Married Emma J. Purefoy of Wake Forest.^[3]
• 1883: Appointed Professor of Biology at Wake Forest.
• 1906: Appointed President of Wake Forest.
• 1922: Stood up against anti-evolution legislation in North Carolina.
• 1927: Retired ast president emeritus of Wake Forest.
• 1936: Elected president of NC State Baptist convention.
• 1938: Died from a stroke and was interred at Wake Forest Cemetery.^[4]

Legacy

From the obituary that appeared in the Durham Herald at his death:

Dr. William Louis Poteat...gained and retained a top position in the Baptist church and walked out front in all prohibition fights. He was among the stalwarts who went to Raleigh and stood up against the "monkey bill" that aroused the stir over evolution and fundamentalism in this state... That, many will remember, did not set so well with some of Dr. Poteat's Baptist brethern, but time and tolerance won and in 1936 Dr Poteat was elected president of the State's Baptist convention.^[5]

Sources

1. ↑ Randal L. Hall, 2015).
2. ↑ University of North Carolina. The Evolution Controversy in North Carolina in the 1920s (Accessed 19 Jan 2019).
3. ↑ Asheville Citizen-Times, "Death Claims Dr. Poteat at Wake Forest]" (13 Mar 1938; Pages 1-2),
4. ↑ Find A Grave: Memorial ID # 8121103.
5. ↑ The Durham Herald, "William Louis Poteat" (Obit), as repriinted in The Daily Times-News of Burlington, NC (15 Mar 1938: Page 4).

See also:

• Wikipedia.
• NCPedia.
• Wilhelm Kühner, 2018.